Sublime

Written by Christina Lauren

Narrated by Elizabeth Louise and Cal Wembly

True love may mean certain death in a ghostly affair of risk and passion from New York Times bestselling duo Christina Lauren, authors of Beautiful Bastard. Tahereh Mafi, New York Times bestselling author of Shatter Me calls Sublime “a beautiful, haunting read.”

When Lucy walks out of a frozen forest, wearing only a silk dress and sandals, she isn’t sure how she got there. But when she sees Colin, she knows for sure that she’s here for him.

Colin has never been captivated by a girl the way he is by Lucy. With each passing day their lives intertwine, and even as Lucy begins to remember more of her life—and her death—neither of them are willing to give up what they have, no matter how impossible it is. And when Colin finds a way to physically be with Lucy, taking himself to the brink of death where his reality and Lucy’s overlap, the joy of being together for those brief stolen moments drowns out everything in the outside world. But some lines weren’t meant to be crossed…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Oct 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781442374836

Christina Lauren

Christina Lauren is the combined pen name of longtime writing partners and best friends Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings, the New York Times, USA TODAY, and #1 internationally bestselling authors of the Beautiful and Wild Seasons series, Autoboyography, Love and Other Words, Roomies, Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating, The Unhoneymooners, The Soulmate Equation, Something Wilder, and The True Love Experiment. You can find them online at ChristinaLaurenBooks.com or @ChristinaLauren on Instagram.

Reviews for Sublime

[darkfaerietales_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Review courtesy of Dark Faerie TalesQuick & Dirty: Unfortunately, I found this novel mindless, plotless, and boring. Not to mention the horrible case of instalove.Opening Sentence: The girl is bent into odd angles when she wakes.The Review:Lucy wakes up one day on the campus of a boarding school in the woods, without memory or direction. She is no longer alive, but a Walker, a ghost. The only thing holding her to the earth seems to be a boy. Colin lives each day full of unnecessary risks and adrenaline pumping activities that more often then not make him bleed and break. Collin is Lucy’s anchor to the world. But what is she to him? Guardian? Savior? Or certain death? Even amid the many mysteries surrounding her, the two begin a deadly romance. The only way to physically be together is to bring Collin to the brink of death, where their worlds overlap, but this will mean taking his favorite recreational dangers to the next level. But is it enough? And what will the consequences be?Going into this book I was wary. I have seen a lot of not so complimentary reviews about this one. They didn’t like the characters and how they treated life. They felt that the risks Collin took were stupid and that he should have drawn the line far before he did. And I must say, I agree. I understand that he wants to be able to be with Lucy in ways other than long conversations and fleeting, painful touches. But at what cost? Is it really worth giving yourself freaking hypothermia time after time again so that you can kiss a ghost girl? Gosh. There were so many red flags, so many warning signs, before the not entirely unexpected ending. It annoyed me how little living meant to Colin. Is that really the message you want to convey, that life is worth nothing?The main character Lucy does very little besides ponder and walk. She is often torn between wanting to be with Colin and stopping this nonsense before he hurts himself. I wish she had gone with the former and saved everyone in Colin’s life (as well as Colin) a whole bunch of grief. She doesn’t have many goals. I mean, she’s interested in her reasons for being on earth in the land of the living again, but for the most part she just thinks of ways to endanger everyone else so that she can get what she wants: Colin. She had weird characteristics, Lucy. Different people saw different things looking at her. Was her hair brown or blond?! I still don’t know for sure. It really threw me off and gave me a slippery grip on her looks.I’m warning you right now, this paragraph I might get a tad bit sassy. Or more than a tad bit. Anyway, this book had very pretty writing and a not so pretty plotline. Nothing happened. Nothing. It was super slow, with no development in characters or romance. The only thing we discovered was just how annoying Lucy could be as a POV. And we sort of figured out what the walkers were there for. Sort of. The only thing that happened was an overwhelming case of instalove, dull personalities, and two main characters who make you want to shoot yourself while reading. I’m only slightly exaggerating. To tell you the truth, I’m very impressed with myself for pushing through every single page! I honestly just was curious about the ending, which turned out to be Stupid Thing that Colin Does #261. I think it was supposed to be tragic, but I could have laughed.Okay, toning down the sassiness now. Sorry, I had to let it out. In conclusion: I would skip this book. The characters are cookie cutter, with annoying views on what is important. The romance is shockingly instant and doesn’t develop a bit. In fact, the two characters are horrific together, with Lucy deciding that Collin risking his life for her is fine and it’s worth the few moments they can steal while his body shuts down from hypothermia. Sometimes it was funny, but not in a good way. I laughed out loud when Colin described himself as a “mindless walking erection”. (The description was spot on, if you were wondering.)Notable Scene:Heading back to the lake, she sees Jay and Colin on the ice, zipping around.“Wait,” she said, “You’re riding on the lake?”“Yeah. It’s frozen,” Colin says, hopping up and down on his bike. The tires squeak against the ice as if in agreement. “Solid.”“Are you crazy?”“Absolutely,” Jay calls.FTC Advisory: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers provided me with a copy of Sublime. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.

[capnrandm · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Review courtesy of All Things Urban Fantasy.allthingsuf.comDon't be fooled into expecting the usual YA ghostly love story, SUBLIME will entrap those tender expectations and twist them into horror. While the characters are as charismatic as expected from the expert romance duo Christina Lauren, most of the ghostly promise of the plot ultimately fell flat.An avid fan of Christina Lauren's contemporary romances, I started SUBLIME with high hopes. While SUBLIME help my full attention for several chapters, by book's end, my overwhelming feeling was "disappointment". The characters in SUBLIME are captivating (even Lucy with her amnesia has depth and intrigue), but the hints and paranormal quirks of this world never felt satisfactorily explained. Ghosts are both expected and unexplained in this little pocket of reality, enough so that I was primed to expect this ghost story taking place outside our world. Ultimately, SUBLIME says very little satisfying about these events, leaving both the world building and the romance in a lurch.SUBLIME's tagline could be "The Lengths Teenagers Will Go to to Get Laid", a sentiment I type with both cynical laughter and emotional pain. Isolated, uncanny, and a little bit horrific, as a romance SUBLIME will put your emotions through the ringer. For a haunting, inexplicable ghost story, however, you've come to the right place.Sexual Content: Non-graphic sex scenes.

[brandileigh2003 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I wanted to read Sublime because of the haunting cover and the description of the ghostly love story and wanted to know more about the brink of death experiences he got himself into, as well as the whys to Lucy's appearance and her draw to Colin. I liked how it was dual perspective, so while we know a bit about Lucy, Colin definitely doesn't and we are figuring out along with him why she is so special to him, why he sees her with ease and why she isn't noticed as much or the same way by the other students. The school already has ghost stories, they call them Walkers, and claim to have seen ghosts around the lake and in the woods, and I didn't know how much or at all it played into why Lucy was drawn to the school and why she couldn't leave. Colin is a dare devil to start with which I guess made me a bit more okay with the risk taking that he does in order to connect more with Lucy. It was an interesting element to the story, that is for sure. I couldn't believe how far some of it went actually, but it was unique. I really enjoyed the story as well as the lure around the school. I couldn't decide about Lucy and what the intentions were and if her strength and presence actually was from his near death experiences or if it was some other theory that she actually was his guardian. And oh my the ending... Um. I am really not sure what happened. It was extremely open ended and the epilogue didn't really help with clarity or adding to the answers that I wanted. Bottom Line: Great premise and elements but the ending and non-answers really wasn't for me.